And just so we are clear (once you get it translated) @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN himself is accusing me of criminal behavior, working as an "illegal" CIA agent in Russia. Its completely false. Its intimidating to me. & @Twitter is allowing him to spread that message to a million followers.

10:44 AM - 29 Jul 2018

Just so you are well aware, Klyushin's not just some random 400 pound guy trolling from his parents' basement in Moscow. He's a heavy hitter (been described as an "oligarch" by some, a "fixer" by others) and purports to be a member of the Russian Ministry of Culture.

He also has a few interesting friends. Like this guy, who he partied with in Moscow in November 2013:

:large

His former wife is Yulya Alferova, who was the PR rep for the Agalarov company when they hosted the 2013 Miss Universe contest. She sat in on business meetings with Trump and would go on to promote Trump as a presidential candidate on social media long before Trump officially announced his candidacy:

:large

Artem Klyushin is also good buddies with Konstantin Rykov, the chief online propogadist for the Kremlin, who claims he ran an operation for Russia which used Cambridge Analytica, Wikileaks and hackers to get Trump elected.

Artem actually attended Rykov's Election Night party in Moscow in 2016, and was sitting at a table with Rykov when the election was called for Trump.

All I can say is that Artem is a slimy, creepy little weasel (known for intimidating anyone on Twitter who even comments on a story that mentions his name), and he knows a lot more about Donald Trump than most people are aware.

McFaul has already been exposed to these criminals before the campaign begun, and was contemporaneously made aware of their deeds as they occurred. That's why the Kremlin is attempting to intimidate and harass him.

5. Why was there an Election Night party in Moscow?

6. Oh, not just that, there's video of it. (Lordy, there's tapes!)

Most of it is in Russian, but the individual speaking English at 1:02 is Jack Hanick, one of the founders of Fox News who immigrated to Russia to start up a news organization named Tsargrad. (It appears to be a pet project of Russian ultra-nationalist Alexsandr Dugin).

Hanick also happens to be Sean Hannity's former director.

The big moment when Trump is projected a winner is at 7:08. Rykov is the guy with the beard and the black hoodie who comes up to the front to sing "We are the Champions." You briefly see Klyushin sitting at the table with Rykov at 7:12 and then again at 7:25.

It's absolutely fascinating how in your face these fuckers were about everything. Still are.

7. I'd forgotten all about the Hanick-Fox-Russia links.

From Alternet in April:

Jack Hanick, whose now-deleted LinkedIn profile shows he began working for Fox News three months before its first broadcast aired in October 1996, left the network in August 2011 and helped launch the Orthodox Christian network Tsargrad TV three year later.

The religious network’s founder, Konstantin Malofeev, is a Kremlin-connected oligarch who’s been under U.S. sanctions since 2014 for financing pro-Russian separatist rebels in Crimea. ...

Despite the sanctions, Hannity’s former director Hanick — who has since been accepted into the Russian Orthodox Church with his family — to help launch the network.

“The nod to Fox is not accidental,” Financial Times reported in 2015. “To get Tsargrad TV up and running, Malofeev hired Jack Hanick, one of Fox News’s founding producers, whom he met when they were both speakers at a Moscow conference on morality in the media.” ( ) ...

Hanick left Tsargrad TV — which has featured InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and was the only Russian TV network to cover Trump adviser Carter Pages’ 2016 speech in Moscow — about three years ago but continued working as a consultant to the media company.

The former Fox News executive was invited to celebrate Trump’s 2016 election in Moscow by Kremlin propagandist Konstantin Rykov — who boasted on Facebook that he helped recruit the “Apprentice” star in 2012 to run for president as part of an “insane” plan to reshape the global order.

10. This just makes me want to vomit

15. Cardboard Donald?

Maybe someone else pointed it out but I do not think that is a live Donald in pictures #1 and #4. I think that is a cardboard cutout of Donald, not the real guy. Exact same pose in both pictures. Or photoshopped.

Trump had long been Alferova’s business idol. She read his books, his life story, and modeled herself after him, working in commercial real estate for Crocus Group, developing social-media pages for Russian governors and regional officials, organizing federal and regional events. That day in November, Trump teamed up with Alferova, as if they were old friends. “We talked as if we were equals, and I felt certain we were very much alike,” she said. Trump invited her to have lunch together—Alferova pulled up one more picture to demonstrate that there were just a few men and her waiting for lunch at the Crocus restaurant that day. When she mentioned she was interested in the real-estate business, Trump pulled out his business card and encouraged her to call him when she was in New York.

The dossier full of allegations discrediting Trump that was released earlier this month came as no surprise to Alferova. “His competitors dug in the dirt to come up with something against him, but Trump is a solid, huge figure who predicted and figured out everything in advance. He will just roll over all this misery, and next week nobody will remember this story,” she said of the dossier.

Notably, it's this article where she attempted to hand deliver to Trump a fake alibi against the possibility of the pee tape by claiming Trump couldn't have been involved in any incident at the Ritz since she claimed he only stayed one day.

Trump then repeated that false claim to James Comey and others; however, flight records and photographs conclusively show that Trump was in Moscow for at least parts of three days.